1. Technical Field
The present principles relate to digital video effects (DVE) systems. More particularly, they relate to a method and apparatus for providing user enhanceable DVE.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, video effects are used to produce transformations of still or moving pictures or rendered visual objects. Typical examples of video effects include but are not limited to: video image 3-space transforms such as scaling, locating, rotating, etc.; pixel-based video image processing such as defocus, chromatic shift, etc.; and other manipulations or combinations of transformations such as bending, slicing, or warping of the video image surface(s) into different forms.
Video Effect production falls into two distinct categories: Live and Pre-built.
Live Broadcast Video Effects allow the technician to transform live video while meeting video broadcast real-time demands. Products that produce Live Broadcast Video Effects have various names and trademark names and will herein be referred to by the commonly used (NEC trademarked) acronym DVE, which stands for Digital Video Effects. Currently in DVE products, Live Broadcast Video Effects are created by controlling a set of parameters within a DVE system. Most of these parameters act upon ingested video images. The effect-creating live broadcast technician is able to manipulate this set of factory-created parameters, which are pre-determined and limited by the product design.
Pre-built Video Effects allow a graphics artist to produce an effect in non-real-time and record resultant individual image frames into a video clip that is appropriate for real-time playback. Pre-built Video Effects utilize images created by graphics artists and related technicians. These images are often generated by creating and rendering 3D virtual objects, as is typical to many 3D or Computer Aided Design (CAD) modeling systems. The virtual objects and related elements are created by making a 3D model or by other constructive means and then manipulated by varying the constructive parameters of that model. The Pre-built Video Effect is made by recording the rendered images into a 2D video format one frame at a time.